Watch Out: 4 Bad Habits That Are Causing Weight Gain

It’s important for our health that we remain at a reasonable body weight. If we carry too much fat in our bodies, it will lead to any number of health conditions. Mainly, it causes heart disease, high cholesterol, and an early death.

Bearing that in mind, it helps when you can keep yourself at a healthy weight level. The problem is, we often gain weight and slip into unhealthy habits without even knowing it. Mainly, we develop bad habits that cause us to be less active and put on more weight. We keep up these habits for a very long time, and they have an even worse effect.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the most shocking bad habits that are causing your weight gain. Some are painfully obvious, while others may leave you stunned. Either way, all the habits can be found down below:

Do you have a smoking addiction? Pexels, CC0 License.

Smoking

Smoking is a seriously bad habit that causes unknown amounts of health problems. Most people think that it’s linked with severe weight loss, but it’s also a cause of weight gain. The reason this happens is that smoking affects your lungs and entire respiratory system. It can cause lung disease, asthma, and any other disease that make breathing a real difficulty. As a result, you will find it very hard to do any strenuous activities and stay fit. Even something as simple as running down a road will leave you bent over wheezing like mad. Consequently, the will to go out and exercise isn’t there as you know you can’t do it. Plus, your doctor will probably advise you against going out and exercising lots because your lungs simply can’t handle it.

So, you stop being active and this leads to excessive weight gain. It’s a serious issue, and you need to break your bad habit. How can you do this? Well, it won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but there are some ways you can quit smoking forever.

Firstly, you need to start addressing the cause of your smoking problem. Most people are addicted to smoking thanks to the substance called nicotine. It’s present in cigarettes and is highly addictive. If you find something like nicotine gum or patches, you can substitute your nicotine source and get your fix it a non-toxic manner. Another idea is to replace the act of smoking with something similar and unharmful, like vaping. You can get vape pens filled with liquids that turn into vapor for you to ‘smoke.’ They come in all sorts of flavors, and you can visit www.vaporescence.com/pages/teleos for more information on the different types available. It’s important to get a flavor you love as you’ll soon become hooked on that rather than smoking, which is good for you and means you won’t suffer from any problems that stop you from exercising.

Lots of sweets can cause weight gain. Pexels, CC0 License.

Eating Too Many Sweets

Now, you’re probably aware that eating fast food is bad for you, right? You all know that eating too much McDonald’s or having Burger King every week will cause you to gain weight. There is simply too much bad stuff in fast foods that make weight gain really easy. But, you probably didn’t know that your bad habit of eating too many sweets is also causing weight gain. That’s right, those precious little gummy bears could be turning you into a gummy blob. The fact is, sweets are often packed full of calories, and you don’t even realize it. Or, more specifically, whole bags of sweets are packed full of calories. The issue is, we will often go through an entire bag of gummy bears without thinking about it. We look at them as individual little gummy bears rather than the collective bag. Then, within ten minutes we’ve consumed over 300 calories worth of sweets that provide absolutely no nutritional value to us whatsoever. All these empty calories add up throughout each day and week and make it really really easy to put on a lot of weight, fast.

Obviously, this now leads to the world’s biggest conundrum; how do you stop eating lots of sweets? It’s going to be a difficult task, but you can kick this bad habit if you try your best.

What you can try and do is substitute the sweetness in sweets with the sweetness from the fruit. Buy loads of fruit and put it in your kitchen so you can have it whenever you need to snack. Also, you can buy lots of healthy snacks that are low in calories and provide you with nutritional value too. Essentially, if you have healthy snacks and food in your house, you can eat them instead of eating sweets. Of course, you don’t have to cut out sweets completely, you can still treat yourself once a week. This will provide you with your fix, without making you eat too much and gain weight.

Are you driving too much? The sedentary lifestyle can lead to excess pounds. Free Pixabay photo.

Driving Too Much

Yes, while it may be very convenient, driving too much can cause weight gain. It might sound a bit crazy, but it’s actually very obvious when you start thinking about it. You see, when you drive everywhere, you’re not active at all. You’re literally just sitting down burning hardly any calories at all. The problem is, so many of us will drive too much when we just don’t need to. We take the kids to school, drive to work, even drive to the shops when we need to get something. This might not sound like an issue, but most of the time we can easily walk to these places. If something is a half hour walk away, you don’t need to drive there, you really don’t. Too much driving will just make you unfit and cause you to gain a lot of weight.

Naturally, we need to find out ways we can stop driving and start being more active. Unlike the other things mentioned so far, this is actually very easy to do.

It’s simple, all you have to do is live by something called the ten-minute rule. If you need to go somewhere, and it takes less than ten minutes to drive there, you can probably walk instead. A ten-minute drive is pretty pointless, but it will end up being the equivalent of a fairly good walk. This forces you to be more active, walk more and avoid gaining weight. There are sites you can visit like https://www.mindbodygreen.com for more info on walking more and actually achieving the recommended 10,000 steps per day.

Alcohol contains empty calories. Those glasses of wine may explain the bigger number on the scale. Pexels image.

Drinking Too Much Alcohol

This one is obvious, drinking too much alcohol as consistently been linked with weight gain. There are a few reasons for this, the first is that a lot of alcoholic drinks contain loads of calories. Things like beers or ciders and sometimes cocktails can be packed full of empty calories. The main issue is, when we drink, we drink too much without thinking. So, we’ve had more than one drink and consumed loads of calories in a short space of time. Now, if we’re going out frequently, and drinking alcohol regularly, it means we’re just piling on the calories. Then, think about what happens when you drink? You normally get hungry, and there’s a slim chance you’ll be going anywhere near something healthy. Typically, you look at the nearest fast food chain, which results in more bad calories entering your body.

The solution is simple; reduce your alcohol intake. Alcohol isn’t as bad as smoking in the sense that you can probably get away with a casual glass of wine or two per week. So, you don’t have to completely cut it out of your life, which makes reducing your intake easier.

One of the best ideas is to simply drink non-alcoholic alternatives when you’re out. You can get mocktails that don’t have as many calories as regular cocktails. They give you the feeling of drinking cocktails without actually consuming any alcohol. Alternatively, you could drink alcohol with hardly any calories in it. Instead of drinking a few glasses of wine you could just have a shot or two. You’ll consume fewer calories and also get just as drunk, so, win-win! If you want, you can have a look on https://www.wholelifechallenge.com/ as they do have some articles showcasing the lowest calorie alcoholic drinks out there.

Identifying the Bad Habits

So, which of these four bad habits do you have? If you’ve got any of them, then this is probably the reason you’re gaining weight. I’m willing to bet that the majority of us are guilty of bad habits two and three!

For anyone that’s gaining weight and feeling down about it, don’t worry! It’s remarkably easy to turn things around and start dropping those pounds. All you have to do is cut out all of these bad habits, and then get yourself on a regular exercise program with a healthy diet. If you eat well and remain active, you’re going to see great results, fast. You’ll get yourself to a healthy weight, and wave goodbye to the possibility of any bad health problems associated with being overweight.

I find that smoking might lead to lose weight, though. It works more as a paliative of food than otherwise for many people. If you are already overweight then, yes. It is not that smoking implies that you won´t be able to exercise. I smoke and & excercise on a daily basis. But, you lose aerobic abilities, that’s true…
I guess certain people are unhealthy in many ways. If you like to drink or smoke, just one thing won´t be too bad… The damaging consequences are more in the long term, plus some people just “like” certain things, you know: sugar, regular drinks, cigarettes, sex! …. Drugs and pills are the worst addictions I think. Very bad ones. Finally, as you highlighted, when it comes to nicotine, vaping is a great alternative. Works well, and you take care of yourself at the same way. Sending love for your day! —> ⭐

Aqui, you know how I feel about you smoking… but you already know the effects so nothing more I will say on it.. just know I want you healthy and living a long life so you can twinkle in the world as a star for always ❤ Love you and thanks for the excellent comment here!

Interesting that you included smoking here, Christy. I really hadn’t considered it before reading this. You’re right, of course; if you can’t breathe, you can’t physically exert yourself. I wonder, too, if it doesn’t cause heavy smokers to become sedentary. Enlightening post as always, my friend ♥

There must be something wrong with me. I hate the taste of sugar and candy and cakes. I love walking. I quit smoking 12 years ago. I’m a vegetarian and never eat fast foods.(they taste awful) I love red wine with my dinner, but cannot stand the taste of any other alcohol. I find the thought of no red wine with dinner a tough one. 😀

Ouf… Lucky I only have 2 of these 4 bad habits!
I know that’s already 2 too many 😦
I’m a wine blogge,r and just love wine too much to quit. Yet, like you I like to inform people so they adopt a more responsible behavior, and know what they are ingesting fo rbetter well-being.
For this, I published a post summarizing what you need to know about the calories in wine, there are unfortunately a bit too many, it’s good to know. The top 7 fact about calories in wine here http://socialvignerons.com/2017/03/15/calories-in-wine-top-7-facts/
I did write one about sulfites in wine too.
Cheers. Thanks for this informative piece 🙂 Best. Julien